The Pursuit of Love: With Love in a Cold Climate and The Blessing

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Description

In one of the wittiest novels of them all, Nancy Mitford casts a finely gauged net to capture perfectly the foibles and fancies of the English upper class. Set in the privileged world of the county house party and the London season, this is a comedy of English manners between the wars by one of the most individual, beguiling and creative users of the language.

Reviews

Utter, utter blissDaily Mail

A dazzling comic delightFiona Wilson, The Times, Saturday Review

The story's genius lies in its wicked humour, which remains relentlessly uplifting even as the Blitz begin to smash all the hopes of that pre-war arcadiaOlivia Laing, The Guardian

Too spiky and intelligent, I think, to qualify as an altogether cosy read [...] beneath the brittle surface of Mitford's wit there is something infinitely more melancholy at work - something that is apt to snag you and pull you into its dark undertow when you are least expecting itZo Heller, The Telegraph

Nancy Mitford taught the wonderful truth that laughter can see you through the darkest hours of your lifeDaily Mail

The Millennial faint-hearted will be appalled by Mitford's depiction of class and gender. But Mitford's triumph is that, as the Radletts live and laugh and cry, we [cry] with themJulie Parsons, The Irish Times

In her novels Nancy mastered her life, making everyone who was different or difficult into figures of mirth, moving only among the aristocracy, and infusing the world with a spirit of lazy, delightful romanceNatasha Walter, The Independent

Utter, utter blissDaily Mail

A dazzling comic delight.

Author Bio

Born into one of the aristocracy's more eccentric families and educated at home with a clutch of siblings, Mitford used childhood experience, lightly fictionalised, in her comic novels. She also wrote biographies, translated from the French and edited a celebrated symposium on English Aristocrats.